A Pocket Full of Sherlock
by LeonaWriter
Summary: To Sherlock Holmes, the world is big, and he is small.  But that doesn't stop him from being much smarter than the humans, even if they did have brains much bigger than his.
1. Seen

A Pocket Full of Sherlock

...

It had started out as simple curiosity.

Being small came with its advantages, Sherlock had realised from a young age, but more often than not, he found himself staring the disadvantages in the face and ranting off to the rat's skull in his shoebox-sized home how very _unfair_ it all was.

The humans - he didn't deign to call them by the name the rest of his race had given them; they had a scientific name, and he would use it - had it lucky. They had long legs, and long arms, and they could reach things. Simply stepping outside one's house was not an issue, and they did it every day. And, more to the point, far more humans ended up dead each year than borrowers. If nothing else, there were far, far more humans, tightly packed into (for them, anyway) smaller spaces, which would inevitably cause that sort of thing.

The thing was, when he'd been younger, the idea of borrowing had - almost - been enough. He would one day decide, however, that danger in and of itself was no fun at all, and in fact it was quite boring. He needed something to put his mind to work as well as his body, not _only_ his mind the way that Mycroft had gone. His brother, he had long since decided, was an absolute bore when it came to anything interesting or useful.

He had moved out at eighteen. It had been spring, and one of the owners of the human house his family had chosen to make their home had decided to take a trip into London, creating the perfect opportunity for an enterprising young borrower.

It hadn't taken long to find the underground network, but he had quickly decided that he much preferred being topside to the subterranean lifestyle these tunnel-dwellers had chosen. But some asking around and getting to know the locals meant that he hadn't been homeless long.

Baker Street was a good place to be, and 221 gave him three options for a new home of his own. He had quickly ruled out the first, as there was already an occupant, and the basement was too much of a risk - if there was an infestation, that would be the first and worst affected area of the house. So, in the end, he took 221b, and customised for himself a neat little place above the fireplace and behind the wall.

For the longest time, it suited him quite nicely. He slowly built up a collection of odds and ends from the flat and from the surrounding houses; things that wouldn't be noticed, because humans never really noticed anything unless it was pointed out to them in words so simple even the youngest borrower couldn't misunderstand. For food, he raided the cupboards of the woman who acted as landlady.

It was, of course, the last point that had him nearly getting caught several times a week. The first time, he had nearly given himself a heart attack - he could have been _seen_ - but then, he realised that she hadn't paid him any mind.

Drugs - soothers, she called them. If he only went down when she was on her medications, then he could get away with almost anything. It didn't even matter if he _was_ seen, he learned to realise, since she put him down to her imagination, and the missing bits and pieces from her cupboards to her poor memory.

Then came the day that everything _changed_.

It had started with the sound of the front door closing. Ordinarily this wouldn't have bothered him, except that this time there was a second set of footsteps, and they were _coming up the stairs_. They were coming up to 221b, to his flat, his part of the house.

"I mean, it's not much, but it'll do, right?"

"What? Er, yeah. It's amazing. I still can't believe you're doing this for me, really, I-"

"Oh, think nothing of it. Now, let me go down and make you a nice cup of tea while you settle yourself in, you hear me?"

"Right, yeah..."

As soon as Mrs. Hudson had gone, Sherlock risked a look.

The man she had invited in was hardly tall by human standards, with blond hair cut in a way that suggested military, and put together with his stance did more than suggest. He glanced around the room, taking everything in, leaning somewhat to one side onto the stick - which by the wear of it was not for decoration. Yet he seemed to be forgetting about it, standing to attention in the middle of the room.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. The man might be interesting to watch, but he was invading _his space_, his _home_. And if Sherlock decided that he wasn't welcome, then the man would find himself either intensely inconvenienced, or gone.

...In the end, neither of those things happened. The man was incredibly quiet, mostly keeping to himself. He did, however, have a couple of flaws in Sherlock's eyes - one was that he rarely went out, and the other that he was rather more observant than most of the humans he'd come into contact with so far. At least, so far as the fridge and the cupboards went.

This had led to things becoming rather awkward, but Sherlock had been able to deduce a certain few other things about the man in the meantime; that he was an army doctor, that he had gone to St. Bart's, that he had a drunken sister - he'd originally assumed brother when he'd noticed the phone lying face-down on the table and read the name 'Harry' engraved on the back, but had been proved wrong after being forced to listen to a terse phone call. He also knew - both due to the phone and the phone call - that Harry had been married, but now was not.

His undoing, as it turned out, had been the assumption that he'd be able to hitch a ride with his new flatmate to St. Bart's. He'd always wanted to see the old hospital, having only heard of it before now.

He had managed to - somehow - stay undetected and under the radar right up until the lab. John had gone in, put his coat down, and forgotten it.

Some few minutes later, he came back to retrieve it.

Just as Sherlock, in all his innate wisdom, had clambered up to one of the shelves which, ironically, was just at the right height to be eye level for one Dr. John Watson.

...

AN: I… _might_ continue this? I don't know. Maybe.


	2. Title Drop

Title Drop

...

Sherlock had frozen the moment he had realised that John's eyes were on him, paralysed by a thrill which wasn't entirely terror, but had too much fear to be pure excitement. John, he realised as his much smaller heart began to calm down, had not moved either.

He could, perhaps, work this to his advantage.

And then suddenly John's eyes were darting about all over the place - over at the door, the ventilation, the lab equipment... It was at the last one that Sherlock decided that enough was enough and spoke out, probably breaking the entire Borrower rulebook in the process, but hey, rules were made to be broken.

"If you so much as think about dropping a beaker on top of me like I'm some common bug, think again. So much as for one _second_think about it, and so help me I'll make sure you won't sleep properly again."

Oh, now John really _was _staring at him. Although at least it wasn't the kind of look that promised a squishing.

That wouldn't have been interesting at all, if for no other reason than that he'd need to start looking for another home.

Except that now the much larger human was moving forwards and coming closer. Wary, Sherlock took a step back before he even realised what he was doing, and then when he did stopped short and crossed his arms.

"No, no. But, seriously, you're real? I'm not just seeing things?"

Incredulous, but listening. Maybe...

"I'm not something you need to tell your therapist about, if that's what you were thinking."

Oh, that took him aback. Sherlock bit back a smirk.

"Wait, what? How-?"

"Should be obvious, don't you think?"

"What? No! No, it isn't! And- what _are _you, anyway?"

"Not a 'what', a 'who'. I'm physically exactly the same as you lot are - just smaller. And you're supposed to be a doctor..."

"I- yeah..." Oh, the slow look of realisation. "Sorry. Uh."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. _Oh, great. I think I broke him_.

"Okay. So. You're..."

At that precise moment, Sherlock felt a prickling at the back of his neck - something he'd felt and ignored shortly before John had appeared in favour of the lab equipment.

He was about to be seen. For the second time in one day. Either he was the unluckiest Borrower in their history for a very long while, or-

"John, put me in your pocket."

"..._What_?"

"I said, put me in your pocket. I shouldn't have to repeat myself."

"That's what I thought you said. But-"

In a few seconds, your friend Mike Stamford is going to come in here and he's going to see me unless you do something, and that thing happens to be putting me in there. Got that? It's not _that_ difficult, surely!"

John brought a hand up to his face, mumbled something to the effect of 'I'm going crazy, I know I am', and obediently picked Sherlock up carefully, thumb and forefinger on either side of his chest - a precarious position that Sherlock hoped _never to have to be in again_ - before moving him rapidly through the air and dropping him, just as the door opened again, into his pocket.

"Back here again, are you?"

"What? Oh! Oh, yeah. Sorry, forgot my jacket. I'll be right out."

The door closed again, but Sherlock's sight and hearing were still muffled by the expanse of pocket he was in. Instead of panicking, he made himself comfortable, leaning back against one of the crease lines so as to make as little of an impression on passers-by as possible, too.

"_I don't even know your name!_"

Sherlock laughed at the hissed objection as they headed off toward the door - and the outside world. Obviously he'd been outside before. But simply never as openly as this, and never with the human involved _aware_ of things.

"Sherlock!" He called up the moment they were outside and with enough open space that there wasn't any fear of being found out. Also, a faint voice could be mistaken for someone on their phone, or a shout from afar. "Sherlock Holmes!"

"Great. Oh, just great. And now- what? You want me to take you home and give you food and stuff? I- Wait, wait. What're you laughing at? I can tell you're laughing in there..."

"You don't need to do any of _that_."

"Oh, I don't, do I? And why might that be?"

"Because I'm already living in the flat. Have been before _you_ arrived, that's for sure."

For a moment, John stopped walking, having made a strange noise that Sherlock couldn't completely make out, yet still found gratifyingly amusing.

"You- what-?"

"Keep walking," Sherlock hissed up. "You're attracting attention."

John started up again, although it was rather stilted, and he was obviously distracted as they made their way back to Baker Street. Distracted enough that he didn't notice Sherlock poking his head out the top of John's pocket from time to time to simply marvel at the wonders of the human world- the cars, the buildings, the machines! It was all by far out of the league of anything that he'd ever seen Borrower-made, and he was sure was never going to be able to be perfectly reproduced that much smaller. His coat, if nothing else, was notable for, while being warm in the winter, also being a slight bit too thick and too big for his size, even taking into consideration that he was tall for his species.

Clothes were generally either made from scraps found left lying around, or borrowed from the doll cases and boxes of those girls who'd long since stopped wanting to play with such things, at the time when things got lost so easily, and who knew if something never found its way back in? The coat had been a rare find, and the warmth had been something he'd always be grateful for in winter.

And now, as John's putting the key in the lock and stepping inside, he's left wondering if he did the right thing.

He should have run, should have left everything behind. But he hadn't. Why hadn't he?

He shrugged to himself mentally as John carried on up the stairs and took his jacket off with Sherlock still in it, protesting at the injustice of being smothered by a great deal of heavy fabric as John apologised now that he realised what he'd done wrong. He must have forgotten - something Sherlock would have to cure him of.

...

AN: ...Guess what, guys. I CONTINUED IT.


End file.
